showeredwithgrace

 

We picked up this puzzle at the Wildlife World Zoo.  I thought it might be too challenging since the borders were not straight but she pieces more by the picture.  She completed this one solo (50 piece).  Aren't the colors wonderful.

Unplugged Project:  Water

 

I would recommend this book, A Drop of Water by Walter Wick ~ awesome.  We explored water a bit today. . .

   

floating and sinking

 

making water worms on wax paper (connecting the water drops)

 

painting with water

 

the absence of water under this bridge

 

painting with frozen water/paint (acrylic mixed with water)

 

her "ocean".

Puzzles are her new favorite thing over here.   I think I'll need to move to more challenging ones now since she makes such quick work of this 24 piece.

Over here it is all about mammals.

I am loving these giraffes!  New to our mammal collection.  The mother giraffe actually has mammary glands.

My dh was able to fix the grinder and Rose Red has been having a great time grinding up wheat this week.  I was amazed at how well the old coffee grinder worked for this.  We'll have to run it all through again to make it a bit finer though.  It is difficult for Rose Red to grind up by herself.  She only gets a few turns of the crank in at a time before she needs a break but I have to say she loves the challenge and keeps going back at it!

In the spirit of 'The Little Red Hen' and this season of harvest we are grinding wheat to make bread this week.  Our CSA farm actually gave us a bag of wheat berries this last week ~ which worked perfectly into our plans! (funny how that works, isn't it?)

I pulled out this old manual coffee grinder to grind up the wheat.  It was working well as I tested it out but then when Rose Red gave it a go the gears ended up dismantling somehow ??  I'm thinking it is because she is left-handed and kept turning it in the wrong direction. . .  Now we are waiting for my dh to look at it for us.  I'm hoping we won't have to resort to electric grinding.  There is just something earthier about manually grinding it up.

We've been having quite a theme of seeds and the grinding up of seeds to make food around here this month.  All beginning with that lucky puppet production of The Little Red Hen downtown!

We recently read parts of 'Corn is Maize:  The Gift of the Indians'  by Aliki.  This morning Rose Red had fun making "cornmeal" from dried out cobs from the summer.  I'm thinking homemade cornbread is in order for dinner tonight.  We'll make it together to eat with our chicken gumbo (using up that CSA okra - it keeps coming!).

Once she started stirring it up she knew she just had to have her "cooking hat"  as she calls it.  It does rather have the shape of a small chef hat on her!

Small wheat, big wheat  -  this morning's observation!  Rose Red was so excited about her new nature table and chattered on all morning about her 'wheat' and the Little Red Hen - reciting the entire tale from memory (several times).  In fact she wants to carry her wheat around with her everywhere (I had to put my foot down about bringing it in the car however!).  Our nature tables here are very hands on.  I like her to have the freedom to touch and rearrange the tableau as she chooses.  There is some thought I know to keeping the nature table a 'sacred space' of sorts.  We reserve that for our prayer space.  I find it works best for us if Rose Red's nature table is interactive - she likes it best that way too!  I just periodically straighten it up a bit through the season.

Remember what trouble we were having with our 'fun with rice' back when I was having her play with rice in her water table (without the water)?  We are back to having fun with rice and this has been our way of making it less of a mess!  I purchased a plastic round tablecloth and put the rice in a large plastic tub.  When she plays I place the tablecloth down on the tile floor and the tub smack in the center of the plastic tablecloth.  When she is done I lift off the tub and gently pour back into the tub any of the rice that found it's way on the tablecloth.  Less waste, less mess = happy mommy.  Oh! and the tub has a lid so it's easy to store.  I just lock the lid back on, fold up the tablecloth and place it on top of the lid.  Simple and neat = happy mommy.

This is a toy that I had packed away in our closet of hidden treasures which is basically the closet in my dh's office where I keep Rose Red's toys that I haven't set out on her shelves or that she is too young to be interested in.  I keep a few toys out on her shelves and then rotate them in and out as her interest wanes in order to keep it all fresh and new to her.  This particular toy was given to us by a family we met at the apartment complex we just recently moved from.  I had packed it away thinking it was much to old a toy for Rose Red (all that spelling and reading) ~ after all she is only 2 1/2.  This morning Rose Red found her way into our closet of hidden treasures and pulled this out and downstairs.  I decided I'd just see what she would do with it and sat back to observe.  She immediately set to work ~ apparently she knew just what to do and what it was about.

 

I was delighted to see her recognizing her letters and making the sounds of the letters to herself.  And really it wasn't an intimidating spelling and reading as I had thought ~ it was merely an alphabet puzzle for her ~ and she loves puzzles!  So I guess we'll be keeping this toy out for a while now.

 

Rose Red's friend 'Romeo' has a small crate of wooden vegetables that he can cut with a wooden knife (the vegetables are sliced and held together with velcro ~ you probably know the kind I mean).  She loves this toy and whenever we visit him she runs straight over to his vegetables and begins slicing.  She would like to slice at home too ~ so I pulled out the playdough and now she is having a great time ~ slicing playdough up.  Perhaps I'll start shaping the playdough into vegetables and placing them in a small crate !  This all brings to mind how when our boys were small I would make homemade playdough for them to play with .  .  .  wait .  .  .   there now I've dug out the recipe to share with you ~

The Greatest Playdough

Mix together in a large saucepan:  2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 2 cups water, 4 teaspoons cream of tartar, 3 Tablespoons oil and food coloring of choice. 

Cook on low (stirring) until it holds together and pulls away from pan. 

Cool and knead.

Store in plastic bag in refrigerator (keeps in frig. forever !)

I'll definitely start making this again!  Hhmm ~ I'm seeing playdough carrots, green zuchinni, brown bread, .  .  .  .  .

It began with one of those magnetic drawing boards and moved onto a magnetic farm set and then the two together ~ and now these ~

Magnets !  They are all the rage here ~ even I have become simply fascinated !  Rose Red will go back to work with them over and over and over again.

If you are short on space but would like a felt board try hanging a large piece of felt over the back of your sofa ~ hey ~ it's working for us!

Now we have a roomy (relatively) spot for storytelling and feltwork for Rose Red !

She likes this new toy a lot. When the little 'minnows' are pushed in and released they spring out ~ jumping around everywhere.  Very cute.  Rose Red has discovered that banging them with the hammer is the most effective way to get them to jump really high!

SShhh ! !    I've set this up and I'm going to surprise Rose Red with it when she wakes up from her nap.  Isn't it darling ?! ~ a wooden farm set by haba.

I don't know if she'll 'play' with it ~ but I know she'll walk around holding the pieces and talking about them ~ nomenclature is very interesting at our house right now!

This week my husband had business in Georgia so Rose Red and I decided to tag along.  We've spent most of our time though in Chattanooga Tennessee.  Which is where we stumbled across this great place for kids ~ The Creative Discovery Museum !  Rose Red loved it there and so did I.    I'll be posting a photo album in the sidebar of our day there as soon as I get the chance so you all can see the great things they have available for children.

Chattanooga also had a great Aquarium that we visited.  The Aquarium had river creatures, ocean creatures and even a butterfly pavillion!  Rose Red got to hold a butterfly in the palm of her hand ~ it's a large brown butterfly ~ can you see it?

And we got this great new ABC book ~ I love this book!